Tuesday, February 25, 2014

How I make KaleidiscopesTake a colourful image and add patches of contrasting colours. (Top)Move to Elements 3 and in Distort select Filters then Twiil to stir the colours together.Then I select Liquify in the same group and pull the colours around.(Left)

I then move back to PSP7 and go into Effects - plug ins - where I have downloaded a free file called MedhiKal.I work through that until I have a satisfactory image and save it. Then I go back to the saved mixed up image and go through MedhiKal again.It is easy to make four or five alternative images from one 'Doodle'

Monday, February 24, 2014

Etna

I am getting to grips with Elements 3 after so many years of not using it.I had forgotten that the best distort file was Liquify for manipulating an image. However a little practice brought it all back again. Called this one Etna because it made me think of lava streams running from a volcano.Managed to do 3 more crosswords and now I am averaging about 35-40 minutes entering the words in the squares.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Scanned a new crossword master. This one has six four letter words and no threes. First one I wrote took me an hour. Now I have found the main need is to get the twelve's and ten's set first.THEN the four eight's that run across The most important are the longest words.Second one only took 35 minutes to enter the clues and had the whole done in 50 minutes.

Friday, February 21, 2014

The Hammer of Hell.

I reluctantly have given up on Paint Shop Pro 8 because it kept on saving images in jpg's that are impossible to open.I reloaded Elements 3 because it is so much easier to manipulte images with the Distort effects. Then load them to PSP7 to polish them. I like the big thumbnail sheet, don't like the lines of pix on the newer PSP X4 etc.This JPG started ot as a picture of Clevedon in the early morning taken from Dial Hill Road.To my imagination it suggests an unfortunate victim, that has already been subdued (distorted head shows on left) whilst the hammer is knocking a new soul back into the fires.Twisted thoughts? Yes I suppose. However if we are to believe there is such a place as Hell then almost anything could happen there.

Celestial Dartboard.

This Kaleidoscope, believe it or not started as a picture of a JCB type bucket dredger that was parked doen a green lane were we went to fire our CO2 air pistols.With the 'Twirl' distort from Elements 3 and a few more bits I was able via PSP7 and MehdiKal to turn it into a kaleidoscope with a bit of bite.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Went down to the old Railway track to sort out my CO2 Air pistol. Stuck up a target and got it firing properly. As I was packing up Ia man walked along and asked me if it was OK to walk down the old line. I said that I had never been told it was banned. He was moth hunting, so I mentioned a couple of places out on the moor. I told him that there was plenty of butterflies etc and I had seen a few moths but never took any pix of themIt was a very nice morning and felt like spring is just around the corner. After I had packed up I got in the car to drive away but took a few pix of the lane with him showing in the distance.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

I know I took this shot on Backwell Hill maybe 30/40 years ago but I just cannot place which of the green lane pathways it was. I was there with John and Joan Panes and I can remember it was on one of the paths that joined to the way up from Brockley Coombe. I recall I found a very nice mushroon when we got to as far as the woodland stretch where the lane went down to the coombe.We had gone up over the hill behind Backwell church and parked on a space at the top, then walked along the network of lanes and bridle paths there. Maybe when the rain stops and I get a feeling of Spring I will try going there again and seeing if I can locate it.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Straw bales on Mendip

Came on this shot; I think it was taken up over on the hill above the top of Burrington Coombe. It must have been back in the days of the B31 or Sunbeam S8 I reckon.

Used to be great up on Mendip in the early morning in the summer about 5 oclock. Not a lot of traffic around and good straight stretches of road. Had to be aware of the places where there were off turns though. Put it on Flickr and had quite a few views within an hour of it being posted, plus a request for it to be added to a Haystack group.I wonder if it will do as well on Morguefile as the Leighland Chapel on the Brendons pic. 209 downloads since June 2013

Saturday, February 08, 2014

Came on a shot of myself working on the Romano/British pottery kilns in Congresbury.

Must have been taken in the mid 1960's;.I was already going grey by that time I notice. That old record player box traveled quite a few miles on the back of my motorbike too. I got it for 10d at a jumble sale as far as I can recall. Machine didn't work but I took it out and lined the box with foam to carry my cameras. Used to carry it on the oil van after I got rid of the Agiflex 3. Took lord knows how many baby and small children pix when out on the round too. Wouldn't it have been a marevl and so usefull as well if I had a digital camera in those days.

Found some converted slides while editing and sorting files. The trre one was taken in my Pentax and Praktica days using a Hoya 400mm lens. Must be from the early 1960's. The tree one was taken with the Hoya around from 300 yards away. That was back in the days when I could hold steady enough for a 100th exposure on a 400mm lens.

Barfen 100 ASA slide film overated to 200 and developed by Prolab no doubt about it they did a good service and the Epson 4870 scanner does a good job This was scanned to 300 pixels per inch and made into a 12 x 8 inch JPG..